


voyeur

by sospes



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Bilbo is weirded out by how unusually close Fili and Kili."</p>
            </blockquote>





	voyeur

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on _The Hobbit_ kink meme on LJ.

It’s in the shadow of the stone trolls that Bilbo first notices something strange. 

Dawn bathes everything in golden light as the dwarves struggle out of sacks and down from the spit, Gloin dousing the fire with the trolls’ stew as Thorin hacks away at the ropes keeping them suspended. Bilbo stands off to one side, dazed and hungry—all this talk of how best to eat dwarves has made his stomach grumble—and watches as they put themselves back together. 

Thorin helps Fili to his feet, and the raw relief in his eyes makes Bilbo look away. 

“That was well done,” Gandalf says, fingers curled leisurely around his staff. 

Bilbo picks dried troll snot off his sleeve. “Yes,” he says, “well. I suppose I was the one to get us into that mess. I had to get us out.”

Gandalf hmms in that particular way of his, and the point of his hat seems to nod towards the sun. “I see,” he says enigmatically, and claps Bilbo on the shoulder. “We’ll make an adventurer of you yet, my dear fellow.”

Bilbo wrinkles his nose. “Can that be after breakfast?” 

Gandalf chortles at that, and strides away to Thorin’s side. The soon to be King Under the Mountain is brushing dirt off his fur collar and rubbing at the rope burns around his wrists, but he’s not what has Bilbo fascinated – although he so often is, nowadays. No, rather, it’s his nephews that Bilbo finds himself staring non too subtly at, because they’re kissing. Bilbo’s seen (and done) worse in his time, but Fili and Kili are twined together in the centre of the glade and don’t seem to notice anything but themselves. 

Bilbo sees Fili smile, a broad, jaw-cracking smile that’s overflowing with relief and affection, and Kili’s hands cup his brother’s face and he kisses him, slow and tender and loving. Bilbo looks away, and he sees how they are with each other, yes (how could he miss it?), the affection in every gesture and every look – but they’re _brothers_. 

He coughs, fiddles with his pockets, turns away. 

Bilbo’s seen it now, though, and he can’t seem to stop seeing it. Fili and Kili ride side by side at the back of the company, and whenever Bilbo glances back they’re leant towards one another, deep in conversation or laughing together or—just once—sneaking a kiss. When they lie down to sleep at night, they lie down together, Kili’s hand curled possessively into his brother’s shirt, Fili’s lips curved in a soft, sleepy smile, and they kiss lazily before they go to sleep, half-hidden in the shadows of the trees. 

Balin sits down next to Bilbo and warms his hands on the fire, offering Bilbo a friendly smile as he does so. There’s a twig caught in his snow-white beard, but Bilbo somehow doesn’t think that they’re close enough for him to reach over and pick it out. Instead he squirms in his seat, and finally says, “Should they be doing that? Isn’t it...” He trails off, waves his hands in panicked circles. “Inappropriate?” he finally finishes, somewhat lamely, and feels his cheeks flush hotter than the campfire. 

Balin follows his gaze, and sighs. “They’re young,” he says affectionately. “Aye, it’s a bit much sometimes, but they’ll end up blue and jaded as the rest of us, just you wait.” And he chortles to himself, tucking his hands into his sleeves. 

Bilbo doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He glances back across their camp and sees Fili watching over his sleeping brother like they’re the only ones left in the world – and something warm and heavy settles low in Bilbo’s stomach. He looks away. 

Thorin is watching him, across the campfire, his eyes dark and heavy. Bilbo tries his best to go to sleep, but he can feel that gaze lingering on his back long after he’s closed his eyes. 

When they stumble into Rivendell, the dwarves are exhausted. They hold themselves together long enough to eat everything the elves put in front of them (despite the lack of meat, which Dwalin doesn’t stop grumbling about for at least three hours) and then they’re out, sprawled across each other in sheltered cloisters, eschewing the beds the elves offer in favour of each other’s fat and beards. When Balin, Thorin and Bilbo return from their council with Elrond, Balin settles down immediately, that damn twig _still_ lodged in his beard, but Bilbo lingers on the edge of the dwarfish pile. 

Thorin looks at him, and says, “Aren’t you going to sleep?” 

Bilbo avoids Thorin’s gaze. He’s beginning to find those eyes increasingly easy to get lost in, and he says, “Not yet. I think I’ll just have a look around first.”

Thorin grunts, and rolls over. 

Bilbo wanders the corridors, feeling cool stone beneath his feet and a warm breeze around his ears. For the first time in a long while he lets himself relax: this isn’t the wild, full of wargs and orcs and who knows what else. This is Rivendell, and it’s a place he’s dreamed of visiting since he was a child – not that respectable hobbit society would ever let him admit that. That would be far too Tookish, but as Bilbo wanders further through the Last Homely House he feels Tookishness swelling up in his heart, urging him on to adventure and excitement. 

As he passes a half-open door, from inside he hears a thud and a rumbling laugh. He stops despite himself, quiet as a black cat at midnight, and takes a few steps back, peering through the door to the moonlit dimness within. There are dwarfish boots and clothes dumped inelegantly on the floor, and Bilbo thinks, _oh_. 

So quiet Bilbo can hardly hear it, Fili says, “You could have died.” 

“So could you,” Kili answers, and kisses him softly.

Bilbo’s trying not to notice the fact that they’re both naked, Kili facing away from him and astride his brother with hands around his wrists, pinning him loosely to the bed. They kiss as he watches, Fili’s hands clenching uselessly in the air, and he can’t help but get the feeling that he’s intruding on something so private, so intimate – but he’s frozen, his feet glued to the spot, and when Kili pulls back from his brother and Fili’s gaze is warm and content, Bilbo just _knows_ what’s going to happen. 

Fili’s gaze snaps to him, and after a startled moment an amused expression spreads across his face. “Bilbo,” he says, and Kili twists around to face the door, still not releasing his brother’s wrists. 

“Sorry!” Bilbo squeaks, his voice jumping three octaves unbidden. “I didn’t mean to— I was just— I’m not—”

Fili is grinning. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he says, and seems completely unfazed by his current situation. “I’d invite you to join us, but I don’t think my brother would be too keen on the idea.”

Kili’s eyes are dark. “No offence,” he says, and Bilbo sees his fingers flex tighter around Fili’s wrists. Fili’s looking up at his brother now, a wicked little smile on his lips, but Kili’s attention is all on Bilbo when he says, “Close the door on your way out.” 

Bilbo takes the hint, and even with the door shut their laughter follows him down the corridor. 

When dawn breaks Fili and Kili are part of the company again, sleeping back to back in a corner of the cloisters. Thorin wakes them all roughly—and Bilbo thinks he shakes him harder than he does the others—and tells them to be ready, and to be quiet. Fili winks cheekily at Bilbo as he hoists his pack onto his shoulder, and before long they creep out of the elves’ valley, almost as quietly as Bilbo would have managed on his own. 

Bilbo, however, is subdued. He can’t get them out of his head, how wrong-right it seems, and he almost jumps out of his skin when Bofur claps a hand on his shoulder. “You seem quiet,” Bofur says. “Everything alright?” 

“Of course,” Bilbo says automatically, then winces. “Sort of. Oh, I don’t know.” 

Bofur nudges him playfully, hat lopsided on his head. “A problem shared is a problem halved, you know,” he quips. 

Bilbo sighs. “Fine,” he says, and then, “I went for a walk last night, and may have accidentally somehow come across Fili and Kili...” And he trails off, because he’s still a Baggins, and a Baggins wouldn’t have the words to describe such a situation. A Took would struggle, too. 

Bofur, however, just chuckles. “Welcome to the company, lad,” he says warmly. “The number of times I’ve caught those two at it... Once, it was in a stream in the middle of the day. The middle of the day! Bifur almost choked, and I tell you, he’s seen some nasty things in his time.”

“Doesn’t it—” Bilbo frowns, can’t finish his sentence. 

“Doesn’t it what?” Bofur asks, hefting his mattock over his shoulder .

Bilbo shakes his head. “Never mind,” he mumbles, and focuses on putting one foot in front of another. 

Bofur just laughs. 

The mountain roads are hard, harder than Bilbo had ever dreamed: the rock is slippery beneath his feet and he can barely see for the rain, and when giants made of rock start hurling the mountain around his ears it’s all he can do to not lose his mind. He clings to the rock at his back and Dwalin’s arm, but nonetheless when the mountainside starts to move under them he feels like he might faint: he’s a Baggins of Bag End, and Gandalf was so wrong about all this adventuring. 

And that’s when he hears it, hears Kili’s voice, not soft and mocking like he’s heard it so many times before, no, because Kili is screaming, screaming his brother’s name with so much fear it makes Bilbo’s heart hurt. He feels sick, deep in his stomach, and he can do nothing but watch as Balin grabs hold of Kili’s shoulder, holds him still. 

From somewhere in the rainy darkness, Bilbo thinks he hears Fili doing exactly the same, and a tiny, unruly part of his mind thinks, _love_. 

That night, when they’re safe again and everyone else is deep in exhausted sleep, Bilbo hears soft rustling in the cave, the sound of hands tight in clothes and lips pressed desperately close together – and he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t cough or shuffle or make himself known, because he remembers Fili whispering _you could have died_ and can’t quite stop thinking about how true that is. Bilbo hears Fili gasp and closes his eyes: he can wait a little longer before he creeps away, because they need this, need each other, and he might be a coward but that’s something he’s not going to take away from them. 

“I love you, you bastard,” Kili growls in the quiet. 

Of course, Bilbo doesn’t get a chance to slip away quietly because before long they’re falling, so far and so fast, and there are goblins and riddles, heroism and secrets, and eagles, eagles, soaring through the dawn skies – and then Bilbo finds himself in Thorin’s embrace in sight of the dwarves’ home, and everything seems so much more hopeful. They sleep the sleep of the dead that night, curled around each other at the base of that lofty crag, and Bilbo falls asleep to the sight of Fili and Kili wound so tightly together that no one could ever drag them apart. 

Bilbo wakes to a sky that’s just beginning to lighten. 

He lies still, listening to Oin’s whistling breathing, but after a moment he sits up, picks at the torn front of his waistcoat, yawns. As always, he finds his gaze drawn to Fili and Kili, to the way Fili’s hands rest in Kili’s hair, the way Kili’s grip is tight on his brother even in sleep – and that’s when he realises that he’s not the only one awake. Thorin stands a few metres away, silhouetted against the beginning of the dawn: only days ago Bilbo would have slunk back to sleep, curled in on himself and trying to pretend he didn’t exist, but now he gets to his feet, goes to stand beside their leader. 

Thorin acknowledges his presence with a nod. It’s more than Bilbo’s ever got before, and he thinks about _you could have died_ and soft kisses on horseback and the intensity of Thorin’s gaze across the campfire. He says, “Can I ask you something?” 

Thorin stirs. “Of course,” he answers, voice still raspy from sleep. 

Bilbo slips his hand into his pocket, runs his fingertips around that cool ring of gold. “In the Shire,” he begins haltingly, “siblings don’t... lie with one another. Especially not two brothers.” 

Thorin’s eyebrows are raised. “My nephews’ relationship offends you?” he asks, and his tone is suddenly protective. 

“No, no, not at all,” Bilbo says quickly, and as he says it he realises that it’s true. “At first, maybe I was surprised, shocked, but...” He bites his lip, fiddles nervously with his ring. “The way they are with each other, it’s easy enough to see that they belong together. I just—” He stops suddenly, looks away from Thorin. “I had a question, but it’s sort of slipped away, sorry.” 

Thorin is watching him intently. After a moment he huffs out a soft laugh, looks back out at the sunrise. Bilbo sneaks a glance sideways, and Thorin’s expression is so peaceful. “We dwarves are strange creatures,” Thorin says, and his tone is gentle and soft and so very intimate. Bilbo’s heart thuds louder. “We love once, completely and utterly, and that love is forever. If it goes unrequited, we never love again.”

“That sounds awful,” Bilbo blurts out.

Thorin smiles. “It’s just how we are. To find two people who love each other utterly...” He shrugs. “It’s a rare thing. My sister found her husband, and if her sons find love with each other, then so be it. Happiness is rare enough in these dark days.” 

“And you?” Bilbo finds himself asking. “Have you found your love?” 

Thorin looks at him, level and appraising. His lips are twitched in a smile, just slightly, and his braided hair is wild around his face. “That remains to be seen,” he answers, and holds Bilbo’s gaze just longer than he needs to.


End file.
